This book is a knock-out! It is, as the author says, the first of its kind to develop an ethical framework to encompass everything of moral significance in our world. Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Lehman College, City University of New York Remarkably, it succeeds in achieving this goal. It aims at a very ambitious goal: the development of an ethical theory that encompasses the domains of human relationships, nonhuman animals, and the rest of nature, including the built environment.
This book is striking in its originality. In doing this, he draws on cutting-edge work in cognitive science in order to develop a powerful distinction between beings who use language and beings that do not.įox tests his theory against eighteen central problems in General Ethics-including challenges raised by abortion, euthanasia, personal obligations, politics, animal welfare, invasive species, ecological management, architecture, and planning-and shows that it offers sensible and defensible answers to the widest possible range of ethical problems. He then develops the theory of responsive cohesion, central features of which include the elaboration of a "theory of contexts" as well as a differentiated model of our obligations in respect of all beings. Fox argues that the relational quality of responsive cohesion represents the most fundamental value there is. Thus Fox offers what is in effect the first example of an ethical "Theory of Everything."įox refers to his own approach to General Ethics as the "theory of responsive cohesion." He argues that the best examples in any domain of interest-from psychology to politics, from conversations to theories-exemplify the quality of responsive cohesion, that is, they hold together by virtue of the mutual responsiveness of the elements that constitute them. Specifically, he develops a single, integrated approach to ethics that encompasses the realms of interhuman ethics, the ethics of the natural environment, and the ethics of the built environment. With A Theory of General Ethics Warwick Fox both defines the field of General Ethics and offers the first example of a truly general ethics.
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